Author: Fabs G.
Rating: PG
Summary: When someone threatens to steal the Marauder's title of pranksters extraordinaire, what will they do to see that they keep it?
Disclaimer: JKR owns everything, and she's doing a wonderful job with them. I just borrowed them for a small while.
Pairing: None, but there's extremely vague hints of SBRL
Author's note: Wow, it's been ages since I uploaded anything! Feels good to be back! Now, this story was written AGES ago, way before OOTP (so no spoilers) and left unfinished. I unearthed it some days ago and had great fun finishing it. The story will be seven chapters long, which have already been written, so wait for the next one soon. Have fun! Review!
CHAPTER 1
"POTTER! BLACK!" boomed a voice inside the Gryffindor common room, so loud that it made some 1st and 2nd years jump from their seats. Professor McGonagall strode (actually, stomped) towards where two raven-haired heads (one with shorter and messier hair than the other) could be seen, their owner's noses buried in a large book.
James and Sirius jumped too at McGonagall's bellow, not because of the volume of it (they were quite accustomed to loud voices) but because it was their surnames she had screamed for everyone to hear.
The four marauders were with their four noses buried in books, two of them scratching their quills over parchments to get their homework done before bedtime. At McGonagall's entrance, Remus and Peter looked at each other and could not suppress their emerging smiles, wondering what on earth had their friends done this time.
James quickly shoved the book he had been reading to Remus, who hid it under a pile of schoolwork without McGonagall noticing. The book had the discouraging title of 'Fifty-seven golden rules to become an animagi and 101 reasons not to'
McGonagall towered over the fourteen-year-old dark haired boys, whose innocent expressions was, for once in life, completely honest.
"Kindly tell me what modification you did to the hex and I will not give you two weeks of detention, but only one" right to the point with no pleasantries in between, that was McGonagall for you. Her voice was not ear-splitting loud anymore, but it boomed on the common room anyway, mostly because everyone had stopped talking and making any noise to see what the boys had gotten themselves into this time.
"Whatever do you mean, professor?" asked James, who had the very useful gift of convincing his teachers of anything- whether he had done it or not.
Not that it always worked, of course. "You know very well what I mean." said McGonagall, trying to avoid saying completely meaningful phrases. "You have modified the hex somehow, and it will take a lot of less time getting… getting her down if you just tell me. Now speak."
Mental images of a girl (most probably a Slytherin, they gathered) floating and bobbing up in some ceiling traveled the Gryffindors minds, and everyone hid their snickers.
"Professor, we honestly have no idea what you are talking about" said Sirius, whose charmingly innocent smile was completely and honestly true. "We've been studying" he said, waving a hand at the desk who was not collapsing from the weight of books and parchments only because a sixth-year had been kind enough to magically reinforce the desk for them.
"Studying, my foot" she said, and her voice took a dangerous tone that would have scared the first years. "You are facing two weeks of detention as it is, gentlemen"
Sirius and James now looked pleadingly at Remus and Peter. They knew very well how to play innocent when they had hex a Slytherin into serious psychological aftereffects, but they were completely clueless as to what being truly innocent was.
And everyone found that terribly funny. Everyone had started giggling, some softly, some not so, but they were giggling, all right.
Remus looked at Peter (who hadn't the nerve to speak to McGonagall when she was in such a mood, even if it was to save Sirius and James) and then spoke to his teacher. Full moon was the next Friday and his friends absolutely loathed to be in detention while they could be with Madam Pomfrey and him, as they did every month, accompanying him to the Whomping Willow. "Professor" he said in a small voice after he got the sudden image of McGonagall turning into her animagus form and attacking him viciously for interrupting her.
"Mr. Lupin" she said briskly.
"They actually have been here studying with us. For the last hour or so" he said in a firm voice.
"No offense Mr. Lupin, but you are a little biased towards this two" Remus's words, she wisely mused, tended to be true, so she turned around and faced the students. "Any witnesses?" she said a little gentler, lest she scared them into silence.
"They've been there since dinner" said Frank Longbottom, a fellow fourth year.
"The four of them?" she asked.
Frank, Lily Evans and Alice Rabnott nodded emphatically, as did several others. The marauders weren't very popular to their victims, but as they rarely hexed any Gryffindors, they were absolute celebrities to them. The least they could was stand up for them once.
"Very well." She said, a little defeated. "I'll tell Professor Flitwick to keep working on Mrs. Norris" she said, and she winced. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized her mistake: everyone now had the very appealing mental image of Mrs. Norris bobbing up a ceiling, with Filch fretting below (and, most likely, Peeves bothering her to death)
McGonagall left the common room, ignoring the roaring laughter of the Gryffindors.
The laughing continued for some good minutes, some students meowing every now and then to keep the laughter alive.
"Who did it, then?" asked Davy Gudgeon from across the room once the laughter had subsided "Or how did you manage to it?"
"My fellow Gryffindor," said James solemnly with a hand over his heart, as if he was mourning a beloved pet "as much as we would like to take claim over such worthy act, alas, we did not do it"
"I'd like to know who, though" said Sirius with a slight growl "that kind of thing is only worthy of us!" he said, lifting his index finger up in the air for emphasis. A few people clapped.
"Thanks for butting in, though" said James, looking at Remus and retrieving his book from under the stack of parchments.
"No problem" he said dismissively "I wonder who did it too, though. Charming her up a ceiling…" he laughed
"Yeah, it's you who are supposed to have the right to hex and prank anything what moves around here" said Peter, looking at his friends with a small smile.
"We, Peter, as in the four of us, we have the right" emphasized Sirius, starting to devour the animagi book again "The fact that you two feel reluctant to let yourselves be seduced by the dangerous yet appealing land of Prankdom does not mean you are not entitled to" he said with a half smile.
James lifted his eyes from a page titled 'Thirty seven things that could go awful' "In fact, it would strengthen your reputations as marauders"
"Like I need the attention" said Remus gloomily but automatically, hiding a smirk behind years of self-control…
Mrs. Norris, looking like she was going to fly to outer space thanks to the charmed ceiling, ended up being on the Great Hall ceiling for exactly 37 hours, 24 minutes and 45 seconds (as ballparked by a dangerously mad Filch), and had proven to be quite the entertainment for a whole day. Students invented excuses for spending more time in the Great Hall. Every now and then she would meow loudly in hunger, thirst or plain anger at being so indecently exposed to everyone, and the students would take this opportunity to roar with laughter again. This was one of the only few things the Gryffindors and the Slytherins had ever agreed to laughing together, and all the teachers secretly cherished this moment.
The next transfiguration class had not been a pleasant one for the marauders. Or rather, for James and Sirius. McGonagall knew very well that she could count with the fingers of one hand, maybe two, how many students could modify such a hex as to get a living being up on a ceiling and not get her down until the spell wearied off. (Because, try as he might, Flitwick could not get her down) and of the students who could have done it, three quarters of them would never have done it. That left a Hufflepuff who had been ill at the time, Sirius, James and Remus. Remus wouldn't have done it either- would he, thought McGonagall?
No, of course he wouldn't! she corrected herself, while she paced the corridors of her classroom and looked at how her student's assignments were coming along. Lupin was one who did not like the extra attention, she thought, and one with a good set of morals. But if the whole Gryffindor house backed them out in their alibi, them she should look somewhere else.
She passed besides the table where the four Gryffindors were sitting at and looked at their boxes, which were supposed to be turned into books. Sirius's box already looked made of paper and had words written on it, but was still too solid for a book and could not be opened. James's was nearly identical to Sirius, only the words missing, but had managed some sheets. Remus's box looked as though it had been sliced in a million parts (he had managed the sheets) and had words written all over but still was made of a very solid wood. McGonagall took one look at Peter's box, who had only managed to change its color, and moved along.
"She just shot daggers at me, didn't she?" whispered Sirius to Remus, who today was sitting between James and himself, his eyes never leaving his box.
"You've still got them stuck to your back. Still, if looks could kill, Sirius, right now the school would be attending four funerals" he whispered back, smiling slightly.
"If I find the one who did, I'll kick his arse all the way to Hogsmeade" whispered James at no one in particular and at the same time talking to his friends.
Sirius frowned deeply "James, that was a bloody brilliant piece of magic, you're telling me you feel sorry for the feline?"
James lowered his wand and looked at Sirius as if he had grown another head "Of course not!" he looked as thought he had been insulted "We're supposed to be the masters of pranks here, it just bugs me that someone can be as good as us!"
James had forgotten that McGonagall was as sneaky and silent as a cat (with good reason) and when she cleared her throat, they realized she was standing right behind them.
After a while of silence and when they knew McGonagall was out of earshot, Remus said "So, according to you, no one else in school has the right to perform a prank"
"Bloody right!" said James and Sirius at the same time, as if their minds were in sync (which they probably were).
Remus only shook his head and went back to work on his box. He smiled a very big and self-contempt smile, but while his friends thought it was because he had managed to transfigure the texture of his box, the reason behind it was far from being it.
The true reason behind the smile was that he knew very well who the 'rebel prankster' was, and it felt hysterically good to know it and keep the information from his friends…